Paris is Burning is a documentary film that captures New York City’s African American drag scene in the 1980s. It focuses on balls, voguing and the ambitions of gay men at a time where the HIV crisis was in full swing, and the thought of a show like Drag Race was unthinkable. As one of the men in the film puts it:
I remember my dad say, “You have three strikes against you in this world. Every black man has two – that they’re just black and they’re male. But you’re black and you’re male and you’re gay. You’re gonna have a hard fucking time.” Then he said, “If you’re gonna do this, you’re gonna have to be stronger than you ever imagined. You have to open the door.”